Vendor Contracts

Track vendor MSAs alongside inventory vendors — status, billing frequency, amounts, and dates — with on-demand AI analysis for renewals and overspend. For how match status affects AP bill approval, see the AP Vendor Contracts article.

Key capabilities

• Contract lifecycle: draft → active → expired / terminated
• Billing frequencies: weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, or one-time
• Contracted amount, effective date, and expiration date per vendor
• Optional terms summary for your own reference
• On-demand Analyze Contracts AI review returning up to 10 insight cards on renewals, overspend, and terms
• Severity-ranked insights (info / warning / critical) with a short title and description
• Search, status filter, and edit/delete with delete confirmation; the tab lists up to 100 contracts at a time

How it works

Contract details (vendor, dates, amount, status) feed an on-demand AI pass that returns severity-ranked insight cards.

flowchart LR
  contract["Vendor contract (amount, dates, status)"] --> analyze["Run AI analysis"]
  analyze --> insights["Insight cards (type + severity)"]
  insights --> renewal["Renewal timeline"]
  insights --> overspend["Overspend / cost"]
  insights --> terms["Terms to review"]

How to use it

1. Open the Contracts tab and click New Contract.
2. Enter the contract name and select the vendor.
3. Set the status (draft, active, expired, or terminated) and billing frequency.
4. Enter the effective and expiration dates and the contracted amount.
5. Optionally add a terms summary (for example "Net 30, auto-renew annually") and click Create.
6. Click Analyze Contracts — the AI Contract Analysis panel lists renewals, overspend, and terms to review.
7. Use the search box and the status filter to separate active contracts from expired or terminated ones.

Pro tips

• Run AI analysis ahead of renewal season — it surfaces expiration timing and cost concerns from the contracts on file.
• Keep status current: the list shows the status you set, so change a lapsed contract to Expired yourself, and only Active contracts are used when AP checks bills.
• Always fill in the effective and expiration dates; the AI review relies on them to spot upcoming renewals.
• Store contracted amounts as the agreed amount per billing period, so frequency and amount together describe the real run-rate.
• For how "Matched", "Over Contract", or "Needs Review" statuses affect bill approval routing, jump to the AP Vendor Contracts article.

In-depth guide

Status and expiry

The Status column shows exactly what you saved. DayZero does not flip a contract to Expired when its expiration date passes, so review the Dates column and update lapsed contracts yourself. Only contracts marked Active are considered when AP compares a bill to its vendor's contract.

AI contract analysis

Analyze Contracts sends each contract's vendor, dates, amount, and status to a procurement-advisor model that returns up to 10 insight cards. It does not read the terms summary or the contract document, so treat "terms" insights as prompts to go check the paperwork.

Each insight is classified as a renewal, overspend, or terms issue. A single run reviews at most about 30 contracts. Analysis is on-demand (not scheduled) and read-only, so it never changes contract records. With no contracts on file the panel is empty.

Relationship to AP routing

• Shared records: these are the same vendor contracts the Accounts Payable approval workflow reads when it computes a bill's contract-match status (Matched, Over Contract, or Needs Review).
• Why it matters: keeping amounts, frequency, and the term window current here is what lets AP auto-approve in-contract bills and escalate the rest.
• Division of labor: the inventory tab focuses on tracking and AI review; the routing behavior is documented in the AP Vendor Contracts and AP Approval Workflow articles.

Edge cases

• Contracts belong to one business; you only see and analyze the current business's contracts.
• Deleting a contract asks for confirmation and removes it from analysis going forward.